


Oh, What a Relief It Is

by sabinelagrande



Category: MythBusters
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Gen, Humor, Subtext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-13
Updated: 2010-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 22:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's early in March when Adam gets his new cellmate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, What a Relief It Is

**Author's Note:**

> I want to note that this is the least accurate story I have ever written, ever, but I feel like it's _so_ far from reality that it just tumbles over into its own kind of double AU (kind of like Phoenix Wright and the law, y'know?).

It's early in March when Adam gets his new cellmate, and Adam's afraid of the guy on general principle. He's short and built, always a volatile combination, but, somehow, his name is the scariest part. He's not Hyneman or James or JJ or Big J or even Jim; he's so butch that he can unabashedly call himself _Jamie_ without anybody blinking an eye.

It's after lights out on their first night sharing the room, and Adam can't sleep. "First thing you're gonna do when you bust out?" he asks Jamie. It's a stupid question, but he's found that it reveals a lot about a person, and he's still finding it hard to get a read on this guy.

For his first year inside, Adam's answer was always, "Find something cool to steal." Then it was, "Watch something get blown up"; then he worked his way down to, "Have a steak dinner and a good bottle of wine."

Now he doesn't really have an answer, and that bothers him.

The room is silent for a long, long time, long enough that Adam turns over and tries to go to sleep, assuming the new guy's an asshole.

Except that then Jamie sits up in his bed and says, "Who told you I was trying to break out?"

\--

"Okay," Adam says, rubbing his hands together. "Let's see what we've got. Escape attempts, go."

"I bribed a guard," Jamie offers.

"That's cheating."

"It almost worked."

"My buddy JD brought me some det cord, I blew the window and shimmied down a drain pipe."

"_Now_ who's cheating."

"Oh, if it works it's cheating? Is that our criteria now?"

"I made a crossbow, shot the guard, stole the keys to the roof, went down the side of the building."

"On what?"

"Rope."

"How the hell did you get rope?"

"Made it out of toilet paper."

"Nicely done. Okay, let's see, the next one- oh, I tried to do it total Alcatraz style. Started digging a hole in the wall and everything."

"Didn't work?"

"They found my stash of raincoats and figured out what I was up to."

"Last time, I ate through the bars with salsa."

Adam stares at him for a full minute, totally dumbfounded. "Bullshit."

"Easier than I thought," Jamie says, shrugging. "Of course, then I couldn't fool the bloodhounds, and they dragged me back in."

Adam presses his fingertips to his eyes, trying to stop the headache that's threatening to form. "Where does that leave us?"

It takes so long for Jamie to answer that Adam's already started wondering if he just missed the end of the conversation. "It's too bad we're not in irons," he says, finally.

Adam does a double take. "What?"

"We could make a mortar out of a tree, fire the ball from the irons, send ourselves over the wall one at a time."

He rolls his eyes. "Oh, there is no way that would ever work, ever."

"Well, either you'd make it or you'd rip your leg off and bleed out in a few minutes," Jamie clarifies. "But either way, you'd be free."

"Yeah, let's steer clear of the fifty-fifties, please." Adam thinks for a minute. "Is pruno explosive?"

"Only one way to find out," Jamie says, and he's even almost kind of smiling.

\--

"Antacid tablets," Jamie says, days later, leaving Adam to go scrambling for the beginning of the conversation.

"You mean, like, Alka-Seltzer?"

"Yeah," he says, leaning forward and suddenly looking more excited than Adam's ever seen him. "We line the room with plastic, fill it with antacid tablets, turn on the faucet-"

"And the force of the gas from the tablets blows out the wall," Adam finishes, getting excited himself. "It's crazy," he says. "I love it!" He stops short, a thought occurring. "How long is it gonna take to get all that Alka-Seltzer?"

"It's a small room," Jamie replies, defensively. "It isn't like we don't have time."

\--

They work on the plan for weeks that turn into months; they must be the two most stomach-sick inmates of all time, but they keep gathering pills a few at a time. On a good day, Adam can sneak back to the cell with a whole shirtful of tabs, and he's able to do it several times before Jamie gets suspicious.

"Where did you get all of those?" Jamie finally asks.

"Tory helped me out," Adam beams.

"Tory," Jamie says- and Adam didn't know he'd learned Jamie this well, but his voice is extra emotionless, flat in a dangerous kind of way.

"Tory," he says carefully, "y'know, Salvatore, works in the dispensary. He's a good guy. Burned a couple houses down for the insurance money, apparently."

"And he helped you out."

And wow, suddenly Adam gets it- well, he doesn't get all of it, but he gets the outline of it, that somewhere along the way, Jamie's started feeling very... proprietary towards him.

He's kind of not as terrified of that prospect as he expected to be.

"He helped _us_ out," Adam spins. "Personally, I think it's because he's totally shit-scared of you." He has no idea if that's actually true or not- Tory's only actual concerns seem to be working out and protecting Grant- but he's pretty sure everybody with half a brain is scared of Jamie, and Tory fits in that category.

Jamie looks very slightly mollified. "I wish you would tell me before you start telling other people about things that are supposed to be a secret," he says, less irritable than he probably should be.

Adam actually reaches out and touches him, for what may be the first time. "Sorry," he says.

Jamie looks at Adam's hand on his arm, but he doesn't move at all. "Don't let it happen again," he says, but he doesn't say anything at all the next time Adam comes back with another load of pills.

\--

They hide the tablets everywhere. Down the legs of their beds, behind the toilet, in their pillows, mattresses, whatever. They fill up their room and start on Tory and Grant's; Jamie scowls a lot about it, but he finally agrees to cut them in when he realizes just what a job it's going to be.

The plastic is even worse, giant sheets of it that Grant gets off of the fresh laundry when it comes back in. There's just nowhere for it to even go, except underneath their mattresses, where it makes Adam's life more like a living hell than usual.

"First thing you're gonna do when you bust out?" he asks one night, out of sheer sleepless boredom.

Jamie's answer isn't as slow as usual. "Buy myself a new beret."

Adam's totally thrown. "What?"

"On the outside, I used to wear a black beret."

He's about to make a flippant remark or taunt him with his intentionally horrible French accent, but he stops. This is Jamie, who doesn't talk about his past; Jamie, who never gives anything up to anyone, ever; Jamie, who Adam still really doesn't know anything about, despite all those times where he feels like he's known the guy and his quirks forever. "You know, I think a beret would suit you, strangely enough."

"I always thought so," Jamie says, contentedly.

\--

"First thing I'm gonna do, I'm gonna sleep on a bed that doesn't crinkle when I move," Adam says, hours later, still squirming, and Jamie laughs at him.

\--

They start the build the next afternoon. Jamie gets some duck tape from god knows where, and they start going after it, taping the plastic carefully to the walls to seal up the room. It's very much a team effort; Grant's in the doorway playing lookout, while Tory's off in the yard, causing a distraction in the way that only he can.

It doesn't take Adam long at all to get frustrated; it isn't real until they're actually, really doing it, and once it is, it's like the scales have finally fallen from Adam's eyes. Once he's frustrated, it takes even less time for him to get pissed off at Jamie and himself and the whole stupid thing. Finally, he throws down his duck tape and says, "This is the stupidest fucking idea _ever_." Jamie doesn't even bat a fucking eyelash, just keeps at it with his stupid tape. "We're not gonna get out. We're gonna get dead. The buildup of CO2 alone is enough to kill us both."

"We should have enough time to climb out and seal the envelope before the reaction really gets going," Jamie says, resolutely sticking the tape to the plastic and not looking at him.

"Yeah, and if the force knocks one of the fucking _walls_ out, then what do you think it's gonna do to us?"

Jamie looks like he's about to protest, but he stops, sighing, his shoulders drooping, and he looks so uncharacteristically... _sad_ that Adam sort of wants to give him a hug. "This _is_ a stupid plan."

"What the fuck are we going to do now?" Adam laughs a little, aware that he sounds hysterical. "If anything, I'm less excited about staying in here than I was before we started with this fucking stupid plan."

Jamie crosses his arms, contemplating the plastic lining the ceiling of their tiny cell. "It's time to move the goalposts."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

He must be learning; it doesn't surprise him in the least when Jamie doesn't answer.

\--

"And if you boys can just keep your noses clean for the next six months, I'm certain we can get your sentences reduced so that we can start production as soon as possible."

Jamie leans forward. "And Tory and Grant?" he says, giving the lawyer a hard look and surprising the hell out of Adam.

The lawyer nods. "And we'll see what we can do for Mister Belleci and Mister Imahara as well." He puts his hand out, first to Jamie, then to Adam; shaking it makes Adam feel more human than he has in, well, years.

And then he leaves, and it's just Adam and Jamie sitting there- well, Jamie's just sitting there, Adam's all but bouncing in his seat and clapping his hands with glee.

"I said I wanted to break out of jail, and you got us a deal for a reality TV show about breaking out of jail," he says, still enjoying how the words feel in his mouth. "That's totally cheating."

Jamie smirks. "So if it works, it's cheating?"

Adam laughs then, loud and surprised, and it feels so fucking good that he doesn't even know what to do with himself.

When he gets out, the first thing he's gonna do is take Jamie out for a steak and buy him a new beret.

Adam's more than okay with that.


End file.
